University Business - April 2007 - (Page 72)

INTERNET TECHNOLOGY settled in MySpace and Facebook last year. Initially used for on-campus communications, Facebook has become an enrollment strategy addition. Once the MHC network reached a certain momentum with current students, more and more students from high schools visited by MHC admissions reps or who had been sent mailings started to join the Facebook “friends” group of the institution. “Now, many of those Facebook friends are enrolled to attend next fall,” says Andy Mrozkowski, webmaster at MHC. The University of Florida also started to use Facebook groups last year to promote three graduate programs to undergrads. The decision was based on plans developed by a graduate-level public relations class, on assignment for the University Relations office. Course descriptions, faculty and student bios, and research information were included on Facebook. Grad students and faculty members posted comments and responded when undergrads inquired about the programs. Each program was seeking 10 to 12 additional graduate students, and with that goal met by all three, Joe Hice, associate vice president for Marketing & Public Relations, says, “We believe the Facebook outreach helped.” Another example: Park School of Communication at Ithaca College (N.Y.). Its MySpace profile shares videos created and produced by students and offers a way for alums to connect with recent grads. INSTITUTIONCREATED SITES David Bowers, assistant dean for external affairs at California Western School of Law in San Diego, is a strong believer in the power and the future of online social networking. But he has stayed away from Facebook or MySpace, despite that CWSL students have set up groups on both sites on their own. “It would be a breach of my responsibility to my constituents to recommend the use of those sites rather than provide them the tools they’re looking for,” he says. The institution had studied closely the terms of agreement of these third-party, for-profit services. Administrators now have plans to launch a private social networking website using an external vendor instead. The public social networking concept, Stutzman notes, “is not a public service. It is not a utility. There are no guarantees about what may happen to the Facebook [business], who may buy it, or what may happen with its data. Colleges must keep this in mind before they base any strategy too squarely in the Facebook.” In this context, is a private socialnetworking website the way to go? It’s definitely the safest and the most convenient—for institutions, at least. Five Rules for Marketing Institutions Using Social Networking Sites If your college or university has made the decision to launch a marketing initiative using third-party social networking websites, follow these basic rules of engagement. 1. Know whom you are dealing with. Read the terms of service of any external website you’d like to include in your marketing mix and make sure your institution can deal with any possible associated privacy and copyright risks. 2. Meet the locals. Set up a profile on any social networking websites you might use as a communication channel to experience the service firsthand as a user. 3. Learn the culture and the language. Marketing speak doesn’t work very well in online communities. Get a good idea of what’s acceptable behavior and what’s not. 4. Select and empower good ambassadors. Talk to (and listen to) your student employees or interns. They use these websites on a daily basis and are part of the scenery. Delegating your social networking efforts to student ambassadors will avoid possible backlash caused by what could be perceived as administrator invasion of students’ privacy. 5. Follow the laws of the land. Don’t get your outreach initiatives bogged down by legalities. For example, institutions can create profiles on MySpace. While they are barred from doing so on Facebook, they can launch a group instead. Using Facebook, the University of Florida successfully drew more students to three graduate school programs. WHAT DO STUDENTS THINK? Sam Jackson, a senior at Philips Exeter Academy (N.H.) who has reported extensively about the whole college admission process on his personal blog, has been admitted to the Yale Class of 2011. Like other early-admitted freshmen, he has used the institution’s own website, which has a section dedicated to the future students. He also interacts with peers on a Facebook group these high school seniors created themselves. While he recognizes the usefulness of the school’s website, such websites do demand students juggle yet another login and web presence. He says, “I would like to see an integration between one of these sites and another more mainstream social networking website—a concept that I understand was actually under consideration from the development staff [at Yale].” With the release of Facebook application programming interface (API) in August 2006, this kind of integration is now possible and could help build the next generation of social networking websites on your campus. Resources Collegewebeditor.com (more research and examples), www.collegewebeditor.com/social Facebook, www.facebook.com MySpace, www.myspace.com Noel Levitz E-Expectations Report, www.noellevitz.com /Papers+and+Research/Research North Carolina State University’s webcast of Facebook Phenonemon panel discussion, www.ncsu.edu/facebook Sam Jackson’s college blog, www.samjackson.org/college 72 | April 2007 universitybusiness.com http://Collegewebeditor.com http://www.collegewebeditor.com/social http://www.facebook.com http://www.myspace.com http://www.noellevitz.com/Papers+and+Research/Research http://www.ncsu.edu/facebook http://www.samjackson.org/college http://www.universitybusiness.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of University Business - April 2007

Contents
College Index
Company Index
Advisory Board
Editor's Note
Stats Watch
Sense of Place
Viewpoint
Admissions
Independent Outlook
On The Hill
Future Shock
Spellings Lessons
Identity Mangaement
Getting A Bigger Picture
Facility Directors Speak Out
Internet Technology
Working the Web
What's New
Calendar of Events
Direct Connect
End Note

University Business - April 2007